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Monday, November 7, 2011

Patience on Localization Contact

Have patience on being contacted about becoming a localization editor. It is not a small thing. Please do not ask when you are going to get e-mailed or PM'd or anything, everything should be revealed by the end of the week assuming preparations follow schedule. All I ask is that you continue to wait quietly. You have not been forgotten, I am simply not ready for the process to begin. When I do begin I have to commit myself and be prepared and I am not ready. Thanks to everyone who has had said patience.

P.S. We are using an American localization. You're free to discuss the localizing between yourselves but please refrain from questioning any of the teammates about how we're going about this. It will all be answered soon. Thank you and have a great week--hopefully you'll hear more from us later!

EDIT: I've just completed the rough draft of the e-mail you will be getting. It is currently undergoing approval and should be verified by tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest (EST). Thank you for your continued patience.

28 comments:

Now that that's over and done with, I look forward to receiving any Emails and, if contacted, will do my best :D

It's good to know that this is chugging along at a steady pace, though; I am SOOOO looking forward to using this translation of the game when it is finally ready. I just want to stress how much this means to me and most of the FE fans that you're taking the time to do this for us :D

@Last Anonymous: They're translating to English so people can understand what's going on. It's still playable in Japanese, but you'll have no idea what the story is about. It needs to be done because NoA are lazy and don't feel the need to localise this superb game themselves.

I've been watching this site for a few months now, and every time I see a new update, I always feel really happy. I really hope you all find a person to handle your localization needs too! I love seeing how there's always some new progress too, it's amazing how you all spend so much time to work on this for no reward, simply for us fans. So, thank you for this, and, here's hoping we can help you out!

localization refers to not just translation but generally converting the game to an acceptable "format" for an English release

For example if there were references to Japanese-only things or there were accents in Japanese dialog, those accents would have to be translated into English-esque accents, and references to Japanese culture that no average American could understand would have to be revised or removed.

Localization's base is the word "local", we're making the game "local" so that "local" people can understand that. Part of it is translating it to English, but just a direct/literal translation from Japanese to English would not make a quality game. In games with voice acting localization also includes adding in English voices and whatnot. Thus localization isn't all THAT complex but making sure its done well is part of making a quality... you know, localization.

And we decided this is more of a localization than a translation, as we want this to seem like a professionally done game, as if though Nintendo themselves localized it. Obviously we'll never get that far but we're doing the best we can.

And thanks for the comments in general, we're going to have a surprise video for you guys soon just to show off a few things we've been making progress on. XP

Terribly sorry if this is a bad time to ask, but I was wondering about something regarding the localization e-mail. If it involves any sort of us localizing something to sound more like typical American English, I was wondering if you would include the original Japanese as well, for those of us that can understand it possibly? Because localizing dialogue without knowing if a character speaks formally or in a vulgar tone is something that can lead to more... plain, boring, uninteresting characters in a way. Along with the fact that Base Conversations seem to improve on the characters significantly, it'd be a shame to see them rendered as one dimensional stereotypes, if you know what I'm trying to say here. Terribly sorry if that was ranting though, or seemed like a way of complaining, but I was just wondering about it.

Good to know everything is going along nicely :D And one thing....how can it be a surprise video if we now know about it? :D

@Raven

I don't think it was ranty or whiny at all. It's a fair request, and one that I think warrants an expansion; instead of sending out just the Japanese, why not just say in the email "This character speaks formally/informally/laconically/etc" so everyone can get a higher understanding of the ideas behind the characters. :D

Also, I had a quick bash on the Japanese version recently, just to get a feel for the first one or two chapters and the gameplay, and am I the only person who was disappointed that you couldn't make your character a myrmidon? My favourite class besides Assassin is Swordmaster...they're just so awesome. In my Sacred Stones game, my level 20 SM Joshua had something like a 50% crit rate, and when given a Killing Edge, it skyrocketed to 75%. I mean...that's just unreal!

You have a pretty good point there, but, I think it'd still be a help in a way if we did get the Japanese alongside it to see how the lines were in the original, and how to best improve upon it to make it sound much more authentic to people that want an American localization. But your idea sounds pretty good too, so I can live with that as well.

And, I think Joshua/Guy would easily trash Karel if they were at level 20 and Swordmasters, unless this was FE6, and Karel actually had more levels to abuse his insane growths. This is gameplay wise though.

Canon wise, I'd have to say Karel would dominate them, as we can see he's still alive and kicking on FE6, whereas there is no sign of Guy anywhere, indicating that he may have died, and how he could defeat many people seems to tip the scales in his favor as well. That's if the stories about him aren't exaggerated, anyway.

Other two I don't know about, sorry, but I think it'd be a close one between Zephiel and Nergal. After all, they both were pretty difficult to deal with gameplay wise, and had tons of power canon wise as well. I think I'd have to give the win to Nergal though, because he seems to be rather powerful with draining Quintessence, if that was the correct term. And wow, I ranted quite a bit there!

And sorry for the double post, but, you can make your character into a Myrmidon right after the prologue chapters, along with other classes with the same sub-group of sorts with the Reclass feature. It's pretty interesting to use for all the potential combinations you can gain from it! Making a female can let you select a Myrmidon to start with if you don't mind having a female My Unit! Though, sadly, Critical hit rates were somewhat lowered here, so don't expect a 75% Critical hit rate unless you forge weapons, which can cost a lot of Gold. ... I really need to talk less sometimes.

Oh, I meant for the people who don't speak Japanese :D Having the Japanese with it if you don't speak it is just going to confuse you, after all! XD Maybe have it so that you could just email back requesting the original Japanese, and the first email to your account just has the basic overview. That way, everybody is happy :D

Same here. Gameplay wise, Karel would lose to Guy or Joshua, and I think Joshua would destroy Guy. Although, in FE6, although Karel has insane growth rates, he comes in as a level 19, so he only has one level. It would be closer, but not by much. :D

Canon wise, I agree, even if Josh and Guy took him on at the same time. I think that the stories were meant to not be exaggerated; after all, in the support conversations with Dart, he only says "Hmm...the stories may be exaggerated a little" after Dart mentions Karel "Collecting the swords and laughing," suggesting that he did indeed defeat an army of Knights. He also recalls defeating the "Stone Giant" and the "Mage in Elibe that can freeze your blood in your veins" only a month or so previously. But I would argue the point that Guy dies; no mention is made of his death, either in FE6 or the epilogue of FE7. It is quite possible that you just never encounter him. After all, it is probably a good bet that Heath or Priscilla aren't dead, just that you don't encounter them. After all, since FE6 was obviously made before FE7, Guy possibly wasn't even in the concept art stages at that time. :D After all, can you imagine Karel's student losing a duel? Really? :D

The other two...gameplay wise, I would have to give it to Colm for one simple reason; FE:RD's ability system. If you sent him in with no combat abilities, I believe Jaffar would just edge him out. His avoidance rate is astronomical, and his crit hit rate is relatively high. Of course, crits and lethalities are random by nature, so all it takes is one random chance.Canonically? No chance of Colm winning. Jaffar was nicknamed "The Angel Of Death" and was one of the Four Fangs for a reason. Besides, Eliwoods father warned the group- when it was about 18 or 19 strong- that they wouldn't be able to best him, even as a group (given his stats when you get him, there is quite possibly a large amount of truth in that).

And again, I agree. Zephiel's toughness comes from his high defence (plot armour not withstanding), and when faced with Nergal and his magic- which looks at resistance and is one of the most powerful magics in the game, arguably- I doubt that Zephiel could survive a round, especially considering- as you rightly put it- Nergals quintessence gathering skill. Incidentally, quintessence is actually a theoretical dark energy that is suggested as a possible cause of the "Accelerating Universe" observation, in which the universe is increasing the rate of its expansion. :D

*cough*I'm done. :DAnd Crit rates aren't the only reason I like SM's; they have high skill, so they almost always attack twice, they have high luck so they can dodge, they tend to have quite good strength so they can actually...you know...do damage, and they also get quite high HP. And, since you can customise My Units growth rates (I think), you could pretty much create an unhittable SM. :D

Oh, then I agree with you wholeheartedly, that'd work rather well in my opinion if things were done that way!

Though about Guy, I seem to recall him and Karel having a support in which they would have a duel and the winner would gain the title 'The Saint of Swords', and seeing as Karel remains in Fire Emblem 6, I think we can both see how that turned out. Though Karel seemed a bit reluctant to kill those he had cared for, such as Karla, so maybe he didn't kill him, but we have no way of knowing!

And, FE11 and FE12 have stats set up a bit differently, with characters not being able to dodge everything so easily any longer. So for example, instead of 1 Speed point increasing Avoid by 2, it only increases it by 1, and it takes 2 points of luck to increase avoid by 1 now. So they're kind of weaker now, sadly, but they still have great dodge rates compared to... well, any class really, and have some of the highest skill. So they're still amazing, but they can't be as awesome as the GBA ones, sadly!

If I'm thinking correctly, with capped Speed and Luck, one could still only get a 45% Avoid rate, with supports added, maybe above 50%, but never as awesome as how they used to be. And seeing as Skill seems to work the same way still, with each point giving 2% hit rate along with forging weapon accuracy, it's not possible to rely entirely on dodging now. They still can double attack almost anything though, so they're still one of the more viable options, especially with high strength.

Ah, but in one of Guy's endings, he becomes "The Saint of Swords," so that point is also up for debate. I don't think it's ever been canonically confirmed that Guy lived or died...however, I don't recall seeing anything about "Saint of Swords" in their supports. They agreed to duel, and when Karel said "No" later on, Guy said "I mean it; I will," but no mention of the title was made. The only mention is that Karel is unwilling to talk about how he came by that title...though, given Guys ending and Karels ending regarding the title and that they seem to be mutually exclusive, I think the result of the duel is probably heavily suggested, at the least.Though you are right; It is possible- given his personality in FE6- that he spared Guy. Or, since he is unwilling to talk about it, maybe him killing Guy triggered the change. Maybe it was an epic clash that was enough to not only sate Karels bloodlust, but also finally make him feel guilt for the murder.

Actually, I would play devils advocate there as well. Yes, they may have lower avoid rates, but they DO get an extra twenty levels from the Third Tier rather than the standard 20. So a maxed out Edward would, in effect, be level 60 as opposed to a level 40 Navarre or Guy. So it would balance out, I think. But you are right; the earlier characters were so much cooler...with the exception of Haar. He was awesome. No, I will not listen to your protestations; he was awesome. I maxed him (and several others) out, and he was easily the best...better, even, than Ike. His base stats may have been slightly lower, but he could use more weapons and move further, so I preferred him. :D

Really? My Edward, as a Trueblade, dodged ALL THE FRIKKIN TIME! Lol...But I was thinking for My Unit; it is pretty much a remake of one of the old ones, and I don't see them tampering too much with it. Besides, if you have a 45% dodge rate, reasonably high defence and a s***load of health, you can pretty much destroy everything you come across. XD

To sum up in short, they asked you a pretty good question: " 'This character speaks formally/informally/laconically/etc' so everyone can get a higher understanding of the ideas behind the characters" So that when a person localizes they can be able to get the tone of the conversation and adjust their thought process for the localization accordingly.

Sorry about that, I just wanted to ask that if some of us could get either the original Japanese to see how the character speaks, in a formal way or vulgarly, or even referring to themselves in third person, so we can give a more authentic feel to the localization. Then again, this might be annoying you because we should probably be waiting until you send things, so, you don't have to reply to this.

@Ninjabreadman

Oh no, no, I was talking about FE11 and FE12, Shadow Dragon and the Shin Monshou no Nazo for DS in terms of the stats. I know next to nothing about FE9 and FE10 thanks to not having played them when they originally came out, but my friends insist that the characters were pretty awesome, so you probably are right there, I have no idea really! Though my friend insists that a character named Mia is better than Lakche in Fire Emblem 4, so I assume there must be some great characters in it.

And sorry about the Guy thing, wasn't 100% sure on him, so now I see that wasn't fully correct! Though you're right about potentially making a My Unit overpowered, but it really depends on how you set up growth rates, but it's definitely possible.

@BlazerYes, I was simply asking for an overview or something to tell me their character type, since I don't speak Japanese. Everything else was a conversation with Raven :D

@Raven:

Ah, damn, sorry...I looked at FE11 and FE12 and assumed you meant RD and PoR, sorry.In that case, I believe you would be correct, except that I assume that they make it up stats wise in other areas. It would only be fair, after all! :DAnd whilst most of the characters in FE9 and 10 were such that I would have happily swapped them with other characters, there are some that I was ecstatic with. Haar, as I've already said (Dragon Lord), A couple of the Laguz (Dragon dude FTW!) and the Knight you get earliest. Besides that, I would have replaced them. I would have wanted Matthew as an Assassin rather than Volke, I would have taken Joshua over Edward or Mia, I would have taken Priscilla over the healer you get and I would have taken Ephraim over Ike...but it was a good game, I did like it. It gets a panning, but I enjoyed it. :D I particularly liked The Black Knight, despite the fact that I didn't use him that much...I pretty much used him as a bodyguard for when I was training weaker characters up, or if there were suddenly enemies behind me and I had no other choice.

Don't apologise, I'm not offended. :D But you probably are correct in that it's at least a possibility that Guy died. :DWell, you can edit the growth rates...so I assume that you could use them to jack up your defence and strength, for instance, then change them later to increase another two or three stats. :D

im in no way trying to be a douche or a dick but did you guys ever think this is a waste of time? it seems like this is going to take a year or so and kind of puts false hope into people who are fans, im not saying you guys are doing anything wrong you guys are great for doing this in your spare time but you guys are human and have lives so this probably wont get much attention if any so it kind of raises hopes and creates expectations that might not be met, i mean progress is rarely updated. i know this is a difficult task that takes time but maybe thats a reason it shouldnt have been attempted i mean by the time this translation is 100% the next game will probably have been out and players such as myself might just play it in japanese....just my 2 cents. you guys do a great job though.

I'm very sure everybody on the team considered many factors before deciding to go ahead with their tasks, including those which you mentioned. Progress may be slow, but I don't see why that should be a problem for most people, especially if aren't involved in the project.

Additionally, many FE translation patches were released a long time after the game's release and still have their fans. While it might take a year for this patch to be completed, it will still probably be one of the fastest FE patches to be completed, just ahead of the FE6 patch, which came out around 3 years after the game's release.

Also, we've never given false hope, except perhaps on one occasion and with good reason. I'm also not aware of any expectations that other fans may have, I don't think we've ever mentioned an "official" completion date and we have posted legit progress.

Hope I didn't come across as rude. While you seem to have a fair understanding of our situation, I still feel a bit angry when people complain about a free and voluntary service.

Honestly, fan translations don't always just go super fast. Tales of Innocence, I'm looking at you. That's not to say that it was bad though, it was incredible to play the fully patched product at the end, and the wait most certainly was worth it. But anyway, patience is the key here, and I think progress is fairly often updated every few weeks, not to mention, things are picking up a lot faster if you checked out the recent updates! Don't think you're a bad person for thinking this though, but I'm sure they'll finish the fan translation. At the end, when it's done, it'll be worth every minute you waited, I'm certain of it.

@Ninjabreadman

No problem about the misunderstanding! I've looked up some characters recently myself, and some of them seem rather cool, so I can understand why you like them!

Though on Growth Rates, you can only select them at the very beginning while creating the character and selecting things such as a Merchant's Son, or a Kind person, those actually affect your growths and starting stats. A full list of what affects what can be found at serenesforest.net at the FE12 section, which also has very many interesting tidbits of info, so I recommend you check it out!

I can't really elaborate on much that has been said, but I only found this place recently, and I am amazed at how fast they are going. It takes a long time to translate an entire game and patch its mechanics, and I think that the fact that they've gotten a good chunk done already and are now looking at the story- which is the last big thing, really, that would need translating after everything else was done- when this place is only a year old is phenomenal. I don't think that you are giving them credit where it's due...you do seem a tad ungrateful, but that is probably just my impression. Let's be honest here. Whilst there are certainly people like yourself who wouldn't mind playing the Japanese version, there are far more people who...you know...actually want to know what the hell is going on without learning a whole new language. Ok, personal example...FE6 came out A LONG time ago, right? Well, I started when I was...oh, 11 or 12 years old with FE7; Eliwood, Jaffar, Lyn, that lot...and it will be my favourite through sheer nostalgia forever. I then left it for a very long time, and then played Radiant Dawn. I then went back- a good nine or ten years after I first played FE7- and played the patched version of FE6 (which, chronologically speaking is the better way around of playing it!) and then went on to Sacred Stones, then Shadow Dragon, now here (Putting aside the SNES version I'm playing on the net ATM (Yes, I am addicted to FE)). Yes, it may be a little bit of a wait, but I am perfectly fine with that. If it extends my FE experience, I am all for it! Besides, it isn't just for the people who are waiting for it now...there will be a whole new generation of fans who will be able to grab this patch as soon as they start FE12, and that in itself should be a worthy aim! Yes, it may take some time...but I say that it's worth the wait.

@Raven

Oh, some are awesome....Haar is completely badass, but sleeps all the time...he's been caught sleeping on his Dragon in the middle of a battle more than once!

Ah, I didn't know that, considering that...you know...my version is in Japa-frikkin-nese (and yes, that IS a language, lol). But that makes a whole lot more sense...can you make your guy an assassin? PLEASE tell me you can make him a frikkin assassin! :D :DALSO, in my new playthrough of FE7 (yes, I'm doing it again) I HAVE THREE ASSASSINS! YES! I have Jaffar, a level 20 Matthew upgraded to Assassin and a level 20 Legault upgraded to Assassin WITHOUT HACKS! Those three and Priscilla are all you need on a battlefield, I swear...and my Guy this time round is a lot better. 50% crit rate with an Iron Sword? Yes please! And I will be sure to check it out!

Have you checked out the Fire Emblem TV Tropes page? It has a list of Tropes, characters, quotes...even a fanfiction section...some of the FF's are pretty good...there's one where Heath has a crush on the tactician, and enlists Legault to help him woo her. Hilarity ensues. And it's told from Legaults perspective, which is a major plus! :D There's one bit where he goes "So, I got (fell) off of Heaths dragon" and I'm like "Hehe...I can imagine Legault falling off of Hyperion... XD"

@Everyone

How hard would it be to make our own Fire Emblem-esque game? Come on, if we all pull together, we could try it! XD Doesn't even need to be fancy, we could try something like the SNES game or the original...just something to keep us occupied while we await updates on the patch. :D Come on, any takers? :D

Sadly, you can't make an assassin or thief, as those are considered a type of 'Special' Class, along with Lords and Ballisticians, so no My Unit assassin, sorry! And those sound like some really strong characters! Though personally, I like Legault more than Matthew and Jaffar because of his headband. Yeah. Though Priscilla is always awesome for me, and I love using Raven as well, mostly because he always caps Strength, Skill and Speed for me!

Haven't checked the TV Tropes page for Fire Emblem, somehow, and I love reading them for laughs, so I'm shocked! I'll check it out later, thanks!

And at the game thing, it can be surprisingly difficult, I'm sure! I've tried hacking before, and I only got so far in a week or so (About up to finishing Lyn's chapters) and started to feel a bit less up to it thanks to how... repetitive it can get, having to test it all the time from start to finish in multiple ways to check for bugs.

There's also a hack that Blazer from this translation project is responsible for, called Tactics Universe, which is the most amazing Fire Emblem hack so far, with new music, character graphics, and quite well done humor. I recommend you try that if you're looking for more Fire Emblem! That or you could try Fire Emblem 4 or Fire Emblem 5, with 5 being the most notorious for insane difficulty. I can't even finish it yet, thanks to how hard it gets, so I'm sure you'll be preoccupied by it! And I feel like we're kind of ranting to everyone here randomly, got an e-mail I can contact you at or something occasionally? It'd be a lot faster to talk that way, in my opinion!

D: That sucks D: Well, at least tell me you get AN Assassin in FE12! I would actually murder somebody if you didn't D: (As you can tell, Assassin is my favourite class). I like Jaffar in terms of character- his laconic speech style is just awesome- but gameplay wise, I absolutely love Matthew. He is a far superior Assassin to Jaffar and Legault, if trained properly. :DPriscilla is my automatic choice because of her movement....I actually managed in this playthrough to get her up to level 20 before upgrading. Needless to say, she is kicking ass now. :DRaven is also awesome...I only ever use Bartre in Hectors story (to get Karla) because Dart is so much more awesome, and I prefer using the Hero Crests on people I actually use. :D Of course, if I come across an arena, I'll be sure to train Bartre up to use that third Hero Crest I just came across...

Ah, ok...just an idea. :D They should make a Fire Emblem board game though...that would be cool. They've done it with Game of Thrones and The Discworld recently, so why not FE?

Really? Where can I get this hack? TELL ME! :D which FE does it use? And Jesus, if FE5 is the hardest, I would never complete it...I only just managed to complete FE6! That thing had me restarting chapters more often than I actually completed the damn things!Of course, if I want to call myself an FE fan, I really have to complete FE5, don't I? Ok...after this FE7 playthrough, I shall look into FE5. :D

And yes, I do get the feeling that we are clogging this up...just contact me at the address that I gave Blazer;

ninjabreadman@ymail.com

Just send me the email when you can, and I'll add you to my contacts :D

I read (past tense) the summaries: please do not continue discussing that stuff here only because it's clogging up the area and isn't really pertinent, no offense. Sorry, I just don't think it's fitting. XP

Welcome!

Welcome to the official FE12 Translation Blog.

Here we post progress on the English translation patch of 'Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~'. Check out some of the pages to see details, screenshots, videos, and more.